Activist lawyer, Femi Falana, has argued that the signing of the 2009 supplementary budget by President Yar’Adua on his hospital bed at the King Faisal Specialist and Research Centre in Jeddah Saudi Arabia is illegal and unconstitutional. Falana , quoting section 58(4) of the Constitution which says “Where the bill is presented to the President for ascent, he shall within thirty days thereof signify that he assents or that he withhold assent,”
said that the signing of the said budget cannot stand. He argued that it is already 36 days since the budget was passed by the National Assembly without Yar’Adua signing it.
But the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, yesterday, announced that the President had signed the budget as stipulated by the constitution. He was not specific on the exact date the budget was signed by Yar’Adua.
Meanwhile, a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, this morning, adjourned till 6 January 2010 the matter instituted by Femi Falana and Bamidele Aturu against President Umaru Yar’Adua over his ill-health.
MY COMMENTS
Number one question is; why would Yar’adua choose to hold on to power at all cost, rather than hand over to a loyal deputy?
2. Who convinced Yar’adua that rather than let go of power even temporarily and hand over to Jonathan, let the heavens fall, or rather as the Igbos would say: YA KUWASIA (let everything be broken to pieces)
3. Does Yar’adua know and appreciate the incalculable harm and irrecoverable damage his more tha one month absence has done to the nation?
4. Quoting Abubakar Umar: “What this means is that we should expect to keep Nigeria in its current rudderless state as if the President’s office is hereditary. Others say that the President can continue to exercise his powers from anywhere in the world in whatever condition. It does not seem that anything is too absurd or too shameless in this desperate struggle”…
5. The President and his handlers should explain to us: why are they so afraid to do the normal thing and follow the constitution; are they afraid of Goodluck, or is he from the wrong section of the country, does he bear the wrong name, will he loot the entire central bank, will Turai abandon Yar’adua and follow whoever occupies Aso Rock and thus run after Goodluck, is there a secret that they are afraid one from Bayelsa state would uncover……ad infinitum?
6. Quoting Umar again: “The President’s aides, cronies and beneficiaries of his condition may persist in denial but the truth is that his dismal failure in the past two and a half years could only be the result of his failing health. A charge of malingering would do injustice to the man famed for credible performance as the governor of Katsina state. Yar’adua’s predicament is not a family or PDP affair as his aides would have us believe. They need to acknowledge the terrible suffering Nigerians have to put up with on account of his very dismal performance and having to watch helplessly the pitiful sight of their President on television screens”.
Finally, like I wrote somewhere else: This selfish cabal is playing God with our laws and frustrated Nigerians are asking: why can’t we simply solve this logjam as prescribed in our Constitution?
Yar’adua, Turai and Aondoakaa are playing with the future and destiny of Nigeria by destroying the basis of our laws. It is terrible that a president that came into power singing “the rule of law” mantra will be engaging in this dance of death.
To sum up: it is evident that this Northern Cabal is uncomfortable with parting with power into the hands of a Niger Deltan even temporarilly.
Someone wrote that the first step to solve this type of problem is for us to make every effort to end this “MONKEY DEY WORK BABOON DEY CHOP” arrangement that we presently have in Nigeria.
Let us go back to the drawing board and rewrite the constitution so that ALL NIGERIANS ARE EQUAL BEFORE THE LAW.
In other words, there should be no quota system. Everything should be based on meritocracy. The Govt. Should ensure that in every nook and corner of the country that everyone will have equal opportunity while destroying all the religious, cultural and parochial systems that engender bias and discrimination.
Once that is done, we are more likely to have an Egalitarian or Upright society where Do or Die Politics or Money at all costs will be un-important. I know someone is reading this now and stating that it sounds too idealistic. Well, first things first. As someone just reminded me this morning of a quote below by an American Slave Trade Abolitionist by the name Fredrick Douglass
We must rise and demand equity by saying NO MORE MONKEY DE WORK BABOON DE CHOP because the Baboon (Boko Haram, Mutallab, Cabal) is endangering all of us with carelessness and youthful exuberance that is provided by wealth from oil found in the Niger Delta
We must ALL rise and demand EQUITY by saying no more MONKEY DEY WORK BABOON DEY CHOP, because the BABOON (Mutallab) appears to be endangering all of us with carelessness and youthful exuberance that was provided by welath from oil found in Niger Delta
“Power concedes noting without a demand, it never did and never will. Find out just any people will submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong whci will be imposed on them and this will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows or both.
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress”
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